Wyoming House May Be Legally Obligated To Convene Next Week

The Director of the Wyoming Legislative Service Office says it looks like members of the Wyoming House of Representatives will be legally obligated to convene next week in case Governor Matt Mead wants to issue a veto of any part of the budget bill.

Matt Obrecht told members of the Senate on Friday morning his research into the Wyoming Constitution indicates the House is obligated to be in case the governor wants to issue a veto because he has to formally present the veto to the house in which the bill originated.

Obrecht says his advice is that the house would have to be called into session because not doing so would amount to preventing the governor from issuing a veto. Obrecht did qualify that by saying there is ''some conflicting precedent from the U.S. Supreme court and other states on the issue."

The rule, in this case, does not apply to the state Senate, only the Wyoming House, because the budget bill originated in the state House. The two houses of the legislature then have 15 days to decide whether to override the veto, according to Obrecht.

That means that if the budget bill is presented to the governor tonight [Friday], the governor would have until midnight Tuesday to decide if he wants to issue any kind of veto [Sunday does not count].

If the governor does not receive the bill until Saturday, the schedule would move back a day. The legislature was originally expected to adjourn either today or Saturday, but the two houses spent much of the session at loggerheads over a budget. While it appears a compromise may have been worked out, details on education funding still remain to be hashed out.